Who in Seattle doesn’t know about the Cloud Room? If you haven’t been, you’ve seen the slides from your parents anniversaries.

My last kitchen in Seattle was at the Camlin Hotel. I went from cooking the line at the Alexis Hotel to the Camlin Hotel to get my first job as an Executive Chef. It was kind of like going from haute cuisine to heat and serve. I ended up with some interesting souvenirs of the Camlin Hotel experience: a brass engraved hotel doorknob, a sterling silver crumber replete with dish cover and a healthy loathing for dumbwaiters (the mechanical kind).

All hatred of 1940’s refrigeration and constant cockroaches aside, it was cool being the chef who’s Cloud Room penthouse bar had hosted Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Bonnie Raitt, John Lee Hooker, and Elvis Costello. The Cloud Room had the smoky atmosphere of a speakeasy, with the comforts of a 20 seat-four star restaurant down the hall.

It was sold into private resort ownership right after I left and the Cloud Room has been returned to it’s penthouse origins.

This is a much classier cover than in my day. So was the hotel for that matter.